Encouraged by price correction and lowering of interest rates, the real estate market, after a period of relative inactivity lasting the first few months of the year, witnessed improved levels of activity on the part of retail investors in the residential sector, especially in the low to mid-end housing segment, said experts as well as market analysis reports of the second quarter in 2009.

CBRE Market View, India Office , published for the second quarter, said: “Level of enquiries went up and, more significantly, transaction velocity also increased marginally as compared to Q1 (first quarter) of 2009… However with most of the activity confined to smaller format offices, vacancy levels remain high. Most developers deferred plans for launching any new projects, the focus being on deploying the scarce resources on completing projects in hand.”

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After having remained tightly shut for almost a year, the job market doors are slowly reopening. There is buoyancy across industries and locations.

Enterprises are hiring, internal and third-party HR professionals are back in action and employees who maintained a stay-put status have started looking out.

Based on available information, industry observers say the IT/ITeS sector will hire at least 150,000 people over the next year, against 100,000 this year and 350,000 to 400,000 people during 2008.

Many companies have started reworking their hiring mandate. Infosys Technologies, which previously planned to hire 18,000 persons this year, has said it will hire an additional 2,000 during the third and fourth quarters of the current fiscal. A large number of product firms, R&D companies and mid-tier MNCs have also started hiring.

There is a sense of stability in the market. The next two quarters are expected to bring more clarity,” says T V Mohandas Pai, head of HR, Infosys. Pradeep Bahirwani, vice president for talent acquisition, Wipro Technologies. There is a clear uptake in hiring, though it is too early to conclude if it is a temporary spurt or full-blown recovery.”

Third-party recruiters say hiring is currently more evident in non-IT sectors and it will take another couple of quarters before IT/BPO hiring picks up momentum.

According to recruiters, recruitment is more evident in non-IT sectors. Industries like banking, retail, realty, healthcare, education and housing have been the early beneficiaries of the stimulus package.

The thrust on infrastructure roads, ports, airports, highways, bridges will mean additional hiring in these spaces. Domains like telecom, oil & gas, energy, education, government (e-governance) and utility are also expected to be more active than the tech space.

Hirers will be busy for the next two quarters with non-tech sectors, though the tech sector too has also started showing signs of recovery, says B S Murthy, chief executive officer, Human Capital.

Employees too are coming out of the bunkers. There was virtually nothing in the market for almost a year. Many of us had no option but to stay put. Now, the situation has definitely changed, maybe it is time to start exploring again, says Kiran Kumar, an employee in a large telecom company.